In recent years, discussions about surpassing—whether Ethereum (ETH) can surpass Bitcoin (BTC) to become the largest cryptocurrency—have received widespread attention in the cryptocurrency world. However, recently, the discussion seems to have shifted to whether Ethereum can be replaced by another altcoin.
Solana (SOL) is increasingly being seen as a strong competitor. There is good reason for this: Solana's price has risen significantly relative to Ethereum over the past two years. In fact, the SOL/ETH trading pair is currently at an all-time high.
Increased by 600% compared to ETH.
On October 23, the SOL/ETH trading pair set a historical high of about 0.0692 ETH. This simply means that at that time, 1 SOL was equal to 0.0692 ETH. Such instances have never occurred before.
As you saw in the Solana news this morning, Solana has performed very well in the past week, increasing by over 15%. Thus, Solana's performance is much better than Ethereum, leading to a sharp rise in trading pairs. However, its growth rate since September 2023 has been impressive. The strength gap is significant, especially in the last quarter of last year.
This rise has reignited the debate about whether Solana can replace Ethereum as the leading altcoin in the upcoming bull market. Currently, Solana's market cap is about $82.5 billion, while Ethereum's market cap is $303.7 billion. This means Solana's price must rise by about 270% to surpass Ethereum. However, Ethereum's price certainly won't remain stagnant.
Solana is a beneficiary of the meme craze.
While Ethereum has scalability issues, Solana scores high in this regard. The network has also benefited from this year's hype surrounding memecoins. Solana offers a simple and inexpensive way to issue memecoins, resulting in a large number of such tokens on the network. It is not without reason that the largest list of memecoins is dominated by Solana-based tokens.
The popularity of memecoins means higher usage rates of decentralized exchanges (DEX) on the Solana network. These platforms are crucial for trading smaller coins, so their use has increased significantly.
Does SOL have the conditions to surpass ETH?
Today, most coins are rising, but ETH is declining alone. The most common voice in the square is that ETH is about to collapse, abandoning miners, and without mining costs, it will eventually go to zero. The Ethereum Foundation has been selling off without a vision, conservative and uninnovative, and the second position is not secure.
To be honest, Ethereum is really feeling the pressure this time. Amid the obvious shift towards Solana, the FUD sentiment has surged as if injected with adrenaline. Since 2023, the price of Solana against Ethereum has soared by about 600%, mainly due to the frenzied pursuit of memecoins. Solana's rise has led many to discuss whether it could overturn Ethereum's market cap.
As previously mentioned, ETH/BTC has been ranging between 0.038-0.04 from October 3 to October 19. It seemed that this bottom was stable, but two days ago it dropped to a new low. The Sol series is indeed strong, with the Sol/BTC exchange rate hitting a new high. It seems the position of the second place is really about to be handed over, as SOL rises strongly, taking the entire ecosystem along with it. The increase rankings BOME JTO JUP are all from the Sol series of coins.
Additionally, regarding the meme super cycle, the wealth effect of meme coins within the SOL ecosystem is very strong. The recent waves of enthusiasm have all been driven by MEME, and because of the inherent advantages of the chain, SOL has attracted the main battlefield of MEMEs.
Finally, when the Ethereum team led the way in playing the staking and earning coins model, the decline began. Previously, there were constant complaints about Solana's downtime, but no one denies that Solana is indeed fast. Moreover, there are now many high-performance public chains, and web3 wallets can conveniently use various high-performance public chains. Is L2 really needed? Bitcoin proves it is not necessary; only Ethereum needs L2.
However, in the cryptocurrency field, it is a prolonged battle. SOL and ETH still differ significantly in size. The outcome for both actually depends on the prosperity of the on-chain ecosystem and the richness of gameplay. Personally, I think the time for replacement hasn't come yet, but it is coming soon.
